


Snickerdoodles Are the Way to Steve's Heart

by HMSLusitania



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Cooking Class, Gay Bucky Barnes, Multi, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, actually edible recipes, chef!bucky, steve cannot cook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5204567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HMSLusitania/pseuds/HMSLusitania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve can't help but be a little annoyed when Natasha signs him up for a cooking class - a couple's cooking class. At least, he's annoyed until he meets the instructor, who might just be the most attractive man Steve has ever laid eyes on. </p><p>Featuring chef!Bucky, bitterly single Steve, and their meddling friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snickerdoodles Are the Way to Steve's Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [肉桂糖小甜饼，赢得Steve的心](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271401) by [juliaz1007](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliaz1007/pseuds/juliaz1007)
  * Translation into Русский available: [Рождественское печенье - самый простой путь к сердцу Стива](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8783431) by [DieAhnung](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DieAhnung/pseuds/DieAhnung)



> So this definitely got away from me. It was not supposed to be this long. I also definitely did not mean to write it in one day, so if there's any mistakes, please let me know. Also, this is my first work in this fandom, even though it's pretty much all I read in terms of fanfic. 
> 
> The recipes are all real (and good).
> 
> Also please note, all my military knowledge/jargon comes from my father's own experiences in the Marines in the late seventies and early eighties, or from M*A*S*H.

**Spaghetti**

“It’s just a cooking class,” Nat said. Just intended to teach him how to provide for himself since cooking was really not something he’d learned how to do between the ages of zero and twenty-eight. Mostly because when he was a kid, he was too sick to cook and his mom did it, and then when he wasn’t sick anymore, he did that whole “Join the army” thing where there were three square meals a day provided for him. This was always convenient the one time his squad shipped out with the Marines and they were in port on furlough for a week and he was flat broke. He spent that time, rather than learning how to cook rice and beans or living off Gabe and Monty’s good graces, sprinting the four miles back to base every night to get chow.

“Just a cooking class,” Steve agreed. “Yeah. Sure.”

_Yeah. Sure._

The words would haunt him for the rest of his life, that was damn sure.

It is just a cooking class, yes, that much was true.

A _couples_ ’ cooking class.

And there was Steve, single as shit.

He smiles awkwardly at the newlyweds at the next station. They look pitying. He isn’t sure if that is better or worse than the clearly-married-way-longer-than-they-should-have-been couple on the other side, both of whom are staring at Steve like they are starving piranhas and he is an unfortunate cow.

He grimaces at them and looks down at his counter. He could definitely still leave.

“Alright, everyone welcome,” the instructor says. Steve curses under his breath. It had been his last chance to run for the hills. And now the instructor is there. He wonders if Nat did this on purpose.

“Today, we’re going to start with something really basic,” the instructor says. “Spaghetti sauce. Really, really easy spaghetti sauce.”

“Easier than opening a jar?” one of the couples asks, which got them a few giggles from the other patrons.

 _Six weeks. One night a week for six weeks_ , Steve thinks to himself.

 _Fuck_ , Steve thinks to himself.

The instructor laughs like he is used to all this, which was when Steve looked up. The instructor is – Steve is at a loss for words. The instructor is maybe an inch shorter than he is, almost as well built, or maybe just as well but trimmer he can’t be sure until he sees him naked ( _he will not be seeing the instructor naked_ , he informs his unruly subconscious). His dark hair is swept back in a style that really would not have looked out of place in the 1940s. His eyes, piercing and bright even across the room (Steve is in the back) are intensely blue.

That all had nothing on the casual dimple in his chin and the fullness of his mouth that puts Steve in mind of strawberries for reasons almost certainly related to the fact it is a cooking class. It takes a whole minute for Steve to realise that the instructor is talking.

“Well, no it’s not easier than opening a can, but you know exactly what’s in it and you get the pride of knowing you made it,” the instructor says. “Now, you’re going to need tomatoes, onions, garlic, some herbs – basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, and sage – olive oil, butter, salt, and some wine.”

Steve probably has never had any of those ingredients in his house, except the butter and the wine.

“I see a few of you looking concerned,” the instructor says, making eye contact with Steve and smiling. Steve’s knees do a funny little melting thing that he absolutely does not intend. The male half of the married-too-long couple eyes him. “And I’ll have you know that all of those herbs can be found very easily in any jar of herbs called Italian Seasoning.”

People laugh. Steve manages a weak chuckle.

The recipe, once Steve got a hang of the instructor’s manner, actually isn’t hard. All he has to do is put the butter and olive oil in the pan and once it’s hot, add the chopped garlic and the chopped onion. Once the onion is translucent, he puts in the tomatoes, some spices, the wine, and then just lets it sit there.

“A lot of people get weird about their tomatoes,” the instructor says while they all set their sauce to simmer. “Because you’re at the grocery store and you pick up the pretty, giant heirloom tomatoes, right? The ones that are yellow or striped, or variegated, but you’re about to cook the crap out of them.”

People laugh. Steve notices for the first time that their instructor’s apron is Kelley green.

“When I’m making sauce, I tend to use romas,” the instructor says. “They’ve got a nice texture, they cook really well, and their flavour really comes out when you cook them down. Plus, they’re not that pretty, so I don’t feel bad about destroying them.”

He holds up the strange, oblong little tomatoes that were provided at each of their stations. Steve can’t say his wanders through the produce section at Whole Foods have ever really included time spent considering the difference between an heirloom or beefsteak or roma tomato.

“To add a little dimension, I use the cherry or plum tomatoes,” the instructor says. Steve seriously needs to figure out his name. Nat must know, but he’s not sure his pride can take asking her. “They’re smaller, their flavour is sharper, and they add a nice depth.”

After his lecture on tomatoes, he wanders through the stations, smelling people’s sauces, telling them it’s time to start the water for pasta. Steve is nervous when he shows up at his station, taking a whiff of Steve’s sauce. He feels like he’s in line for inspection.

“Smells good, Soldier,” the instructor says. For just a second, Steve thinks it’s what the instructor calls everyone, and then remembers he hasn’t taken off his dog tags yet.

“Uh, thank you, sir,” Steve says.

“Your girlfriend sick?” the instructor asks.

He is even better looking close to, which just doesn’t seem fair. Steve can smell him, which is distracting as hell because he smells like he’s been baking cookies at some point in the recent past. Any man who smells like snickerdoodles knows the way to Steve’s heart and that isn’t productive. 

“Uh, no,” Steve says. Nat would be laughing her ass off at him if she were here. Cackling madly.

“Didn’t want to come then?” the instructor asks. “I promise I don’t bite.”

“I’m very single,” Steve hears himself say. He wonders if the fact he’s imagining smacking himself in the face shows in his eyes.

The instructor smiles – a truly adorable, gorgeous smile because _fuck everything_ – and dips a spoon into Steve’s spaghetti sauce.

“Don’t feel bad about it,” the instructor says. “Guy like you, it’s got to be your choice. Or the Service’s choice.”

Steve’s mind is blank for a minute trying to figure out what the instructor means by that, and comes up with a vague memory of the elation he felt when DADT was repealed.

“I--” Steve starts.

“Don’t worry about it,” the instructor says, looking awkward for the first time. “I get overly involved in students’ personal lives. Feel free to tell me to fuck off whenever you want.”

He tastes Steve’s sauce, frowns for a second, and grabs the wine. He adds a splash, and then wanders off to help the married-too-long couple.

Steve accepts that he is lost to his crush.

 

**Chicken Noodle Soup**

“Nat, why,” Steve moans, falling face first on her couch and pulling a pillow over his head.

“Nat why what?” Clint asks from somewhere above Steve.

“The cooking class she signed me up for,” Steve explains.

“It’s valuable to know how to provide for yourself, Steve,” Nat says. “Since you don’t have a spouse to provide for you.”

“Is that all I am to you? The world’s best maker of coffee and caramel apples?” Clint demands in mock offense.

“Yes,” Nat says. Steve hears Clint sigh dramatically. “Why is your cooking class so horrible Steve?”

“Because it’s a couples’ class,” Steve explains. _Because the instructor is so hot I honestly wouldn’t care if he was bending me over a hot stove._ “And I am really single.”

“Take Sam with you,” Nat suggests. “Ooh, no take Tony. Imagine the beauty of the situation.”

But Steve can’t take one of their friends with him. The instructor already knows he’s single and it would just look like posturing to the rest of the students. Oh yes, the poor, pathetic single guy at the couples’ class cajoled one of his friends to come with him so he’s not so lonely.

“I’m not taking any of them,” Steve groans. “I already told the instructor I was single.”

He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. Because even though he can’t see them, he can _feel_ Nat and Clint exchanging devious looks. They’re like bloodhounds when it comes to Steve’s love life.

“The instructor, huh?” Clint asks. “She or he?”

“He,” Steve says. “Six foot, dark hair, built.”

“Cooks,” Nat adds.

“Please don’t,” Steve says. “I don’t even know his name.”

“That’s sad, Stevie,” Nat says.

“Sadder than usual,” Clint interjects. Steve pulls the pillow off the back of his head and throws it at him. He hears it connect and hears Lucky barking joyously while Katie giggles from her high chair.

Because screw Nat and Clint and their ridiculous domestic bliss.

Peggy spent Nat’s entire pregnancy being in awe of the fact that even when she was going into labour, Nat looked like she was maybe four months pregnant. Steve spent Nat’s entire pregnancy drinking with Clint in solidarity. The rest of the crew spent the time taking bets on whether they would name the kid something Russian or something American. Steve collected tidily at that occasion, because they named her Katerina but called her Katie.

“Are you at least learning how to cook?” Nat asks.

“I guess,” Steve says.

 

He spends the rest of the week horribly aware that he’s single. It doesn’t usually get to him, not like it did when he and Peggy first broke up or like it did when Peggy and Daniel got married, but he feels it this week. He feels it when he goes to work and Tony and Pepper are Tony and Pepper and Sam and Maria are Sam and Maria and Nat and Clint are Nat and Clint and Monty and Gabe are Monty and Gabe and Bruce and Betty and Jane and Thor and Darcy and Dernier are…whatever Darcy and Dernier are.

And that’s just at Stark Industries. When the SHIELD crew checks in on Wednesday it all gets worse, because then there’s Phil and Melinda and Jemma and Leo and Daisy and Lincoln and Bobbi and Hunter and everything is awful.

Steve is literally the only single person he knows.

He’s worked his way full up to bitter by the time he gets to cooking class on Thursday. The newlyweds introduce themselves as Angie and David. They met in elementary school when he pulled on her pigtails and then didn’t think about each other again until they both magically ended up in New York auditioning for the same play. Steve does his best to smile encouragingly at them since they’re friendly and nice enough. He’s just a bitter old curmudgeon.

“Hi everyone,” the instructor says, walking into the room and tying his apron. “Take a second to look at what you’ve got.”

Steve looks. He’s got celery, carrots, potatoes, onions, half a cooked chicken, and noodles.

“Today we will be making the absolute best chicken soup you’ve ever had,” the instructor says. “And I know this for a fact, because my mother used to make it for me when I was a kid. So step one, debone your chicken.”

Steve goes to debone his chicken. It’s really kind of gross, but he tries not to think about it. It’s cooked after all, it’s not like he’s going to get salmonella.

“What do we do with the bones?” Angie asks. “Can they be composted?”

“It depends on what composting company you use, but we’re not there yet,” the instructor says. Steve should just assign him a name. Something good that can work as a placeholder until he actually figures out the man’s name. Like McDreamy.

No, not like McDreamy, what the hell is he thinking? He doesn’t even watch Grey’s Anatomy. He doesn’t even find Patrick Dempsey attractive for fuck’s sake.

“What you’re going to do with the bones – and it’s okay if they’ve still got a bit of meat on them – is you’re going to put them into your stock pot, cover them with water, a sprig of rosemary, and some salt, and put it on a low simmer,” Sergeant says.

Sergeant. Sure. Why not.

Steve does as instructed, and listens to the instruction to take the tops of the carrots and both ends of the celery and do the same thing. With everything in the pot, Steve wonders why on earth someone would do that to themselves. This is not soup. It is some kind of possibly toxic vat.

“Mr Barnes, what are we making?” one of the other couples asks.

Barnes. Sergeant Barnes. That works in Steve’s head. Works way too well in Steve’s head to be honest.

“Please, James works just fine,” Sergeant Barnes says and – holy shit, Steve knows his name. “We are making the broth. You can do this with any sort of soup. Take all the odd ends you have, your carrot tops, potato skins, fat trimmings from your beef or pork, and simmer them up in some water and salt and herbs. Go ahead and throw a peeled clove of garlic in there, please.”

The others do as instructed and Steve tries, but can’t get the weird purple bark off his garlic clove. He’s pretty sure that he never in his life encountered un-powdered garlic before he started this class. And he can’t get the bark off.

While everyone else chops their onion and carrots and celery and sets them to simmer in some butter in a soup pot, Steve still struggles with the garlic. James ( _ha_ , Steve thinks _, I know his name)_ must notice because he comes over and takes pity on Steve.

“Take your chef’s knife,” he instructs, pressing the very nice, wood handled knife into Steve’s palm.

“And what? Whack it?” Steve asks. He’s okay with knives, usually. Not like Nat is good with knives, but he’s not bad.

James laughs. “No, lay the flat of the blade on it,” he says.

Feeling dubious about a knife’s effectiveness if it’s turned on its side, Steve places the knife.

“Now crush down by pressing on the blade,” James instructs. Steve presses. There’s a crack, and for a second, he thinks he’s broken James’ knife. But when he moves it, there’s only the garlic clove, the evil purple bark cracked down the centre. James shows him how easy it is to get his fingernails under the bark now, and peel it right off. The shiny white clove plops into Steve’s stock pot. The whole thing had taken a grand total of ten seconds and he wasn’t even covered in the sticky inner skin.

“Did you learn how to do that in culinary school?” Steve asks.

James laughs. “No,” he says. “Pulling KP in Afghanistan.”

Steve stares.

“Joined to pay for culinary school,” James explains. “This was back before DADT went out, and some guy in my unit called me some very unpleasant names because I was going to join culinary school, and I punched him out. Pulled KP for a month.”

Steve’s crush has just intensified tenfold. Although, he is definitely glad to know that James went to culinary school because if his only cooking experience prior to this was cooking in an army mess, then Steve was going to doubt every single thing the man said about cooking ever again.

“I always got stuck guarding the weapons’ locker whenever I punched someone out,” he says. James laughs and leaves Steve to chop his vegetables.

Once the carrots, onions, and celery are soft, they add in the chicken and the potatoes, and let them all sit in the liquid that the carrots, onions, and celery have exuded into the pot. It stays on a low simmer for longer than Steve would care to count, and then it’s time to strain the stock. They put the strainer over a giant liquid measuring cup, and pour the stock through. The onion skins, celery roots, carrot greens, and chicken bones get caught and a cloudy brown fluid that smells like the best chicken noodle soup Steve has ever tasted is revealed in the measuring cup. They pour this over the stuff in the soup pot and let it cook merrily. When the potatoes are soft, they add the pasta. When the pasta is plump and a little bloated with the broth, it’s ready to eat.

As with last week and the spaghetti, James has made bread to go along with their soup. The twelve of them sit around the long table in the workshop and dig in. Steve’s is absolutely, ten thousand percent the best chicken noodle soup he’s ever had.

“Alright, who’s willing to share their product with the teacher?” James asks, joining them at the table with a grin.

No one immediately volunteers.

“I’m only taking home leftovers for one,” Steve says. James beams at him and serves himself a bowl of Steve’s chicken noodle soup. Nat would be so proud of him right now. So proud of Steve attempting to seduce a man with his own chicken noodle soup recipe.

 

**Chicken Pot Pie**

Steve does not take advantage of his newfound knowledge of James’s military service to stalk him through SHIELD’s database. He does not.

Tony does.

“The Red Peril says you’ve got yourself a crush,” Tony says.

“Nat hasn’t been Russian for over a decade,” Steve points out. “The Soviet Union didn’t even exist anymore by the time Nat became American.”

“What’s their name?” Tony asks.

“No,” Steve says.

“With a K on the front, or an H on the end, or--”

“Unless you have actual work for me to do, please go away,” Steve says. If his boss were anyone, literally _anyone_ , else besides Tony, Steve would never take a tone with them. But his boss is Tony and therefore, Steve feels entitled. “I’m still working on the design for the PeaceKeepers to make them look less like death bots, so--”

“Your love life is ten thousand – no ten million – no ten billion times more interesting,” Tony says.

Steve stares at him. Tony stares back.

They last in this impasse for all of five minutes (which is longer than Steve thought Tony’s attention span lasted) before Steve finally snaps.

“James Barnes,” he says. “He served in Afghanistan. He went to culinary school. That’s all I know.”

He buries his nose in his tablet so he can get back to remodelling Tony’s Doom Bots into something that might not make children run away screaming. It takes him a moment to register that Tony is still sitting at the edge of Steve’s desk, staring at him.

It’s the blank, shocked way that Tony’s staring at him that makes Steve nervous.

“What?” he asks.

“Sergeant James Barnes with the 81st?” Tony asks.

“How should I know?” Steve grumbles. “Why? Do you know him?”

Quick as you please, Tony is tapping away at his own tablet, no doubt flipping through military personnel.

“This guy,” Tony says, thrusting it in Steve’s face. “Is this your cooking instructor/crush?”

Steve glares at him and looks down at the screen. It is the military record for one Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, born 10 March 1984, wounded in action, honourable discharge, one incident on record, the punishment a month of KP.

The picture, no doubt in Steve’s mind, is James.

“Yeah, that’s the one,” he says, pushing it back in Tony’s face. “Why do you know him?”

“He was the only guy who survived when I got kidnapped,” Tony says.

Steve drops his stylus (somewhere in the back of his mind he knows it’s lost for good) and stares at Tony.

“What?” he asks.

“You know, that whole thing where I got kidnapped and gave Pep and Rhodey heart attacks and--”

“James was one of your protection detail?” Steve asks. He feels sick inside. His squad – Nat, Peggy, Clint, Monty, Gabe, Dernier, Morita, Dum-Dum – had been the ones to track Tony down and lay waste to all the terrorist activity in that particular patch of mountain hell. Their crew, who were hands down the best in the US Military, had lost two people to that particular excursion. He had been pretty sure the original protection detail had been entirely eradicated. But then again, he knew it couldn’t be completely true, since Rhodey was alive and kicking.

“He was in Rhodey’s car,” Tony says. “Pretty sure he’s the reason Rhodey’s still alive. And he joined to pay for culinary school, you say?”

Steve nods, numb.

“Huh,” Tony says. “I’m going to buy him a restaurant.”

Steve doesn’t get to protest because Tony is gone.

This new knowledge of his makes turning up to class on Thursday nearly unbearable. The lot of them had been wrecked when they had to bury Morita and Dum-Dum (“What do you mean his name’s Timothy?” Clint asked when Dum-Dum’s parents were out of earshot. They had all adopted Morita’s daughter as their collective godchild) so Steve couldn’t even begin to fathom what it was like for James, to have to bury his entire squad.

This didn’t stop him from marching up to one of the stations in the very front and setting up shop there. He kicks his helmet under the stool, and then notices to his horror that there’s flour on the counter. Steve might have done pretty well with the whole spaghetti sauce and soup thing. He does not think he’s going to do well when it comes to baking.

He’s nervous for several reasons when James arrives, tying his apron. Another reason adds to the list when James’s face splits into a shining grin at the sight of him in front.

“Steve,” he says. “Good to see you taking more initiative. There’s not garlic in this one, I promise.”

Steve struggles for something to say and comes up with, “Tony Stark wants to buy you a restaurant.”

James’s smile loses some of its brilliance. “He doesn’t have to do that.”

“He probably already has,” Steve says.

James looks desperately unsure. Like he really wants to ask how much Steve knows – _how_ Steve knows – but doesn’t.

“Guess I’ll just really have to cross my fingers and pray it’s in Brooklyn,” James says.

“Knowing Tony, he’s probably already done every single background check on you he can, and not only is it in Brooklyn, it’s in your old neighbourhood where you grew up,” Steve says. It was what Tony had done for him, although it had been an apartment and art studio, rather than a restaurant.

“You know, I really didn’t peg you for a friend of Tony Stark,” James says.

“Employee,” Steve corrects. Tony, in as much as he considers anyone besides Pepper or Rhodey friends, would probably disagree. The fact he hired every single living member of the Howling Commandos, put aside enough money for Kishiko Morita that she could got to the moon for college if she wanted, and bought Dum-Dum’s parents’ house for them and paid off all their debts says a lot about Tony’s character. Steve would be shocked if the only reason he hasn’t done anything for James yet is because he didn’t know how to find him.

“Oh my god you work for Stark Industries and you’re in my cooking class,” James says, sounding entirely disbelieving. “They don’t have personal chefs?”

“They do,” Steve says. “But not in my apartment.”

James nods, but before he can say anything else, the rest of the class shows up, chatting happily. The couple that Steve ousted look hurt, but quickly adjust to the station next to Angie and David, the four of them immediately fast friends. Within a split second, the veneer of easy going, happy to help cooking instructor is back on James’s face.

“Hey everyone, hope you all had awesome weeks. Today, we’re going to branch out a bit. We’re making chicken pot pie,” James says. “From scratch.”

Steve knows he’s not alone in looking at the bag of flour at his station like it betrayed him.

“Okay, so the first thing we’ve got to do is make the pie crust, because that has to chill for at least half an hour before you roll it,” James says.

Steve is not emotionally ready to make a pie crust because he knows no matter what he does to it, it will not taste like his mother’s apple pie.

But he measures out the flour like he’s instructed, he chops up the cold butter and cuts it into the flour. He drizzles in the allotted amount of ice water and – and his crust will not hold together. At all.

“Alright, so who can’t get their crust to stick together?” James asks after he takes a look in Steve’s mixing bowl. A few hands go up. “So here’s the thing, you don’t want to add more water because it will produce more gluten and your crust will turn out super whacko. So, we’re going to add vodka.”

There are a few laughs of disbelief but Steve, sitting in front, can see that James is dead serious and is already pulling a bottle of vodka from the freezer behind him.

“In terms of holding things together, it works just like water, but when you get to the baking process, it won’t react the same way. So just a drizzle of vodka,” James says. He pours a drizzle into Steve’s bowl and to Steve’s immense relief, his dough holds together. “How’s it look, Steve?”

“It’s stuck together,” he says. He’s grinning like an idiot about it, and he’s immensely thankful Nat and Peggy aren’t here. Peggy’s so pregnant she’d probably burst into tears at vision of Steve getting excited about making a pie crust and Nat would laugh at him.

James goes around fixing other people’s crusts and Steve balls his together. They wrap them in saran wrap and put them in the little fridges built into their stations. While they let the crust chill, they repeat the stock making process they went through the week before, taking the chicken bones and the carrot tops and the potato peels and onion skins and a sprig of rosemary and cooking it down. They boil the potatoes, they blanch the peas, they sauté the carrots and onions. Then they make a roux.

“It’s a great thickening agent for gravies and stews if you don’t have eight hours to let them cook down,” James says, demonstrating how to whisk together the flour and butter in a pan. Once the mixture is browned, they add the chicken stock a little at a time until their gravy is thick and aromatic. Then it’s time to roll out their dough. All of the couples each take one half, the top and bottom crusts. Steve is more than prepared to do both himself, but James takes the other and starts rolling with an unreal proficiency.

“Hey, I’m sorry I brought up Tony,” Steve says quietly before cursing while his crust sticks to his rolling pin. James shows him how to remove it with a good sprinkle of flour. “God knows I’ve got enough PTSD to know I shouldn’t bring things up and--”

“It’s fine,” James says. And Steve actually almost believes him. “But that means you’re buying.”

Steve frowns. “Buying what?”

“The excessive amount of alcohol we’ll be drinking when this is over,” James says, glancing up at Steve with a mischievous and flooring grin.

 _It’s not a date_ , he reminds himself. _It’s because he wants to know how the hell you ended up involved in Tony Stark’s business._

“Sounds good,” Steve agrees, layering James’s perfectly even crust into the bottom of his pie dish. At James’s instruction, everyone layers their potatoes, peas, carrots and onions, and chicken into the pan.

“It’s probably making a mountain, right?” James asks. Everyone agrees. “Good. Now pour your gravy over it. All of it. Don’t be shy.”

Steve pours his gravy over his pie and tucks the other crust over the top. They are instructed to wrap the edges of the crust under, pinching it together with the bottom crust. They then trim off the excesses, leaving a wavy edge to their pies. Steve stares at the dough scraps on the counter and is strongly, viscerally reminded of being in his mom’s kitchen when he was little, sneaking pieces of dough off the edge of the pie well before it was cooked. He does it now, twenty years later, with a lot more guilt.

James watches him do it and the corner of his mouth twitches. Steve wonders if James is going to scold him for it (Steve does not, under any circumstances, think about the fact he’s kind of in to taking orders and being told what to do – especially doesn’t get into the probably necessary psychoanalysis that asks why he really likes being bossed around in the bedroom but is absolutely godawful at following instructions when he’s doing something like being a captain in the army) but instead, James just picks up a piece of Steve’s pie crust and eats it. A small dusting of flour hangs off the corner of James’s mouth and Steve’s stomach does a weird flip.

“Alright, so remember to score the top of your pie,” James says, and everyone takes out their paring knives to make little incisions at the top of the pies. “And put them in the oven. Now we’ve got forty minutes to kill.”

“I’ve got Cards Against Humanity in my bag,” David of Angie and David says.

It turns out to be the absolute worst idea anyone has ever had, Steve thinks, burning beet red while he collects yet another black card. James is just about dying with laughter. Like it was somehow Steve’s fault that he’d tried to discard his “getting naked and watching Nickelodeon” card because someone had played “Why am I sticky?” and the two things made no sense together.

“Because of the whole slime thing,” Angie explains, giggling while Steve glumly accepts his card. “Remember how they used to do that? Where they’d drop slime on people in great huge globs?”

“They still do that,” Jessica, one of the other students, says. “Our kids watch Nickelodeon.”

By the time their pies are done, Steve is the unchallenged champion of Cards Against Humanity, his only competition being James’s ten cards. Steve has thirty.

Their chicken pot pies are amazing. Steve had never once in his life imagined he could make something like chicken pot pie, let alone make it well and have it be a relatively painless process. They’re packing up their leftovers, and most of the class has left. Steve looks up from fighting with his Tupperware and the side bag of his motorcycle to discover he and James are alone.

“I was serious about you buying me booze,” he says.

“Okay,” Steve says, trying not to be nervous. Trying not to think about the fact the last time he was on a date was with Peggy and that was over five years ago because random hook-ups in bars absolutely do not count.

“There’s a great bar around the corner that--”

He’s interrupted by the wail of ambulance sirens coming from Steve’s pocket.

“Sorry, it’s Tony,” Steve says, digging in his pocket and pulling it out. His contact picture for Tony is a professional headshot that Tony has since programmed into everyone’s phone as his contact picture. (“It’s because I look fantastic, Pepper,” Tony argued. “You always look good, sweetie, just, maybe…with less creative facial hair,” Pepper replied. Tony gasped and clutched his chest. Steve and Nat burst out laughing.)

“What?” Steve says into the phone.

“Isn’t he your boss?” James whispers, frowning at him. Steve shrugs.

“Hey, so, uh--” Tony starts. In the background of the phone call, Steve hears shouting, something that sounds like fire, the wail of actual ambulances.

“Is everything okay?” Steve asks.

“Uh,” Tony says. A distant woman’s voice demands the phone and Steve hears the shuffle of it being handed over.

“Steve?” Jane asks. “There was a bit of an accident. Everyone’s okay. Well, Betty’s on her way to the hospital, but we kind of need damage control.”

Technically, Steve is a designer. Visual design, specifically. He takes the things Tony and Jane and Bruce and Betty come up with and makes them pretty to look at. Steve is also Tony’s go to guy to run interference when he doesn’t think it’s an actual scandal (if it is, he goes to Pepper) or when he doesn’t want whoever the other person is dead (in which case he gets Nat and Clint to deal with it).

“I’ll be right there,” Steve says. He hangs up and grimaces apologetically at James.

“Rain check?” James asks.

“There was some kind of incident at work,” Steve says. “I think something’s on fire. I have to go.”

“Sure, of course,” James says. “I’ll see you next Thursday.”

“See you then,” Steve says. He feels horribly guilty but runs for his bike. He’s at the tower way faster than someone travelling through Brooklyn and lower Manhattan should be. At the foot, he finds traffic blocked off, while the core members of Stark Industries crowd around the base. They are missing Betty and Bruce, who are obviously at the hospital.

Aside from the missing injured, Tony looks the worst. He’s entirely covered in soot and wrapped in a shock blanket, an oxygen mask pressed to his face. Nat looks like she wants to fight something but there’s nothing to fight. Fortunately, Pepper is in Europe and not around to be horrified at what’s happened. Steve notices the glass scattered on the sidewalk and looks up. Through the dark November air, he can see the missing window from a floor he guesses to be Bruce’s section of R&D.

Darcy and Dernier are having a hushed, rapid conversation in both English and French. Monty and Gabe are standing way closer together than they usually do in public. Sam and Maria aren’t there, but Steve is pretty sure they had asked for the night off.

Jane, who is next worst after Tony, is wrapped in equal parts in a shock blanket and Thor, her giant Norwegian boyfriend. Steve is pretty sure Tony lets him stick around for two reasons – one, Thor is damn good at testing the durability of their products, and two, if he was back in Norway, Jane would also be back in Norway and Tony wants Jane’s brain.

Steve is about to go liaise with the press clustering around the police line, but before he can, Tony is fishing through his bag. He comes up with the chicken pot pie and raises his eyebrow.

“For me? From your boy?” Tony asks, popping open the lid and taking a sniff. One of the EMTs looks like they want to argue with him, maybe force him back into his oxygen mask, but Darcy kindly informs the EMT in question that the last time Tony ate, Pepper was still in the country.

“No,” Steve says while Tony digs into Steve’s chicken pot pie.

“No, as in it’s not for me?” Tony asks. If he didn’t look so beat up from whatever had exploded in Bruce’s lab, Steve would be scolding him for stealing his food.

“No, ‘my boy’ didn’t make it,” Steve corrects.

Tony’s eyes widen. “ _You_ made this? Guys, guys come taste this. Captain America can cook!”

 

**Apple-Walnut Bread**

Steve has pretty much worn a hole through his living room floor by the time he’s supposed to leave for his cooking class. He doesn’t know why he’s freaking out so much, or why he’s changed his clothes like seven times because nothing looks right and everything fits wrong and he can’t mention it to anyone he knows because one of them will make him go shopping just so they can scandalise the people who work in the stores by giving them a view of Steve’s half naked body.

He’s also checked his wallet several times to make sure he’s got enough cash to theoretically pay for a cab should he become drunk (unlikely) while drinking with James after class. He doesn’t admit to himself that there is also a condom in his wallet. He does not.

Finally, it’s five thirty and time to go. He makes it to the restaurant/classroom with five minutes to spare and arranges himself at his station, sitting on the stool with his knee jiggling. James appears seconds later, close enough that Steve almost allows himself to wonder if James had been waiting in the back room for him.

“Drinks, right?” Steve asks, hoping to God his nerves don’t show on his face.

James’s face crumples. “I’m so sorry, pal,” he says. “I have a meeting with a contractor and an interior designer almost immediately after this.”

“What for?” Steve asks. “Redoing your apartment?”

“No,” James says, scratching the back of his neck. “Redoing the restaurant Tony Stark bought me.”

Steve smiles. “That’s great,” he says. “Where is it?”

“Block where I grew up in Brooklyn,” James says, nodding in deference to Steve’s prior knowledge.

“I only knew he would do that because he bought me an apartment and studio on my childhood block,” Steve explains.

“I never would’ve pegged you for a Brooklyn native,” James says, grinning at him. “Seem more like a Connecticut guy.”

“You take that back James Barnes,” Steve scolds, flicking an oat at him. It’s then that he notices the substantial amount of oats on his station.

James laughs, heartily. “Hey, I could’ve said you were from Jersey.”

“No, poor and sick in Brooklyn,” Steve says.

“Sick,” James repeats. He looks blank. “You?”

“All the time,” Steve says. “I’ll have to show you pictures of me when I was a kid sometime.”

“Yeah, you should,” James agrees. “Because I do not in any way believe you.”

Steve laughs and looks down at the ingredients on his table. Oats, apples, walnuts, some seriously ripe bananas, a couple eggs, cinnamon, and maple syrup.

“What are we making?” he asks.

“Breakfast food,” James replies.

The rest of the class shuffles in, chatting animatedly with each other. Angie and David went out for drinks over the past week with Jessica and her husband Luke. Pietro and his wife Crystal spent the week hanging out with his twin sister Wanda and her husband Jonas. Steve feels bad for a second, because he has made no friends in this class, with the possible exception of the instructor.

The very hot instructor, who keeps looking at Steve.

“Today we will be making Apple-Walnut bread,” James says. “It’s pretty healthy, it’s gluten free – if you go for that sort of thing – and there’s no sugar in it but you’d never be able to tell.”

James instructs them to turn half their oats to flour with the cleaned out coffee grinders on their tables. They mix it with the baking powder, baking soda, the remainder of the oats, and cinnamon. In the mixers, they put the eggs, peeled, drained bananas (Steve has never before encountered the horror that is an overripe banana left to drain. He didn’t even realise this was a thing that needed to happen, but sure enough, a mucilaginous brown syrup drips from them into the catching bowl) and maple syrup. They mix this together until it’s smooth and then mix in the dry goods. When that’s done, they spread half the mixture in a four by eight greased baking tin and layer one cup of chopped apple and one cup of chopped walnuts over it. They top it with the rest of the batter and set it to bake for fifteen minutes.

“Probably the quickest thing we’ll make,” James says. “Which is good, since it’s great for breakfast. Especially if you’ve got kids. You can pretend it’s the sort of sugary treat they want, even though it’s way better for them.”

The parents in the class laugh and Steve is suddenly horrified by the idea that perhaps James has children.

The bread rises in the oven and Steve watches it while James comes around to check on all of them. He lingers at Steve’s station, but doesn’t say anything. While he crouches down to peer through the oven door to make sure Steve’s bread is rising, Steve is strongly tempted to reach down and run his fingers through the soft chestnut hair on the back of James’s head. Or to tuck the tag back into his sweater. He’s not sure which he wants more, but both feel like they would be overstepping.

The apple walnut bread is really good. It’s surprisingly good for having nothing bad in it. Steve’s not sure what to make of that, and instead eats his in relative silence with a bit of butter and maple syrup drizzled over it. The amount of maple syrup he puts on it probably cancels out any healthy aspects of the bread, but he doesn’t care because it tastes great.

He dithers after class is over, waiting for everyone to be gone, because he wants just a second alone with James.

He gets it.

“I’m really sorry about blowing you off for drinks,” James says. Steve tries not to focus on the fact James just said ‘blowing you’ in a sentence directed at him. “Especially since it was my idea.”

“It’s all good,” Steve says. “Next week.”

“Yeah,” James agrees. “And you can tell me all about how someone who seems as clean cut as you ended up working for Tony Stark.”

Steve laughs. “It’s really not that good a story.”

James raises his eyebrow like he doesn’t believe him. What Steve doesn’t believe are the next words out of his own mouth.

“Do you have kids?” Steve asks.

Whatever James was expecting him to say, it is not this.

“Uh, no?” James says, looking at Steve like he’s gone crazy. “No, I’m really fucking single and also gay.”

Steve does his best to take this in stride.

“Someone like you has to be single by choice,” Steve says.

James laughs because it’s pretty much the first thing he said to Steve. “Yeah, a little. That and the screaming PTSD nightmares.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “I…I get that one. Really. I do.”

“I know,” James says. The tension in the moment builds until James’ phone chirrups. He swears under his breath. “I have to go, so I have to kick you out now.”

“Right,” Steve says, leading the way out the door. James doesn’t have a vehicle and after he locks the door, he stands on the edge and starts going to wave down a cab. “Hey, I could give you a lift.”

James eyes him for a second, takes in Steve sitting on his motorcycle, helmet outstretched.

“I appreciate the offer, but unless you’ve got another helmet, I’ll take a cab,” James says. “It’s November. Hate for you to slip on the ice and break your head because you gave your helmet to me.”

“Who says I’d give you the helmet?” Steve asks. “Who says I wouldn’t just keep it for myself?”

“Come on now,” James says. “You’re the one who dropped out of the forties. You’d definitely give your passenger the protection.”

“Hey now, this is very James Dean,” Steve says, indicating his white t-shirt, his black leather jacket, his jeans, and his bike. “That’s the fifties. You’re lucky I even have a helmet in the first place. Now get on the bike.”

James grins and grabs the door handle of the cab that’s just rolled up.

“I’ll see you on Thursday, Stevie,” he says and yeah, they’re definitely flirting and Steve really likes it. “Maybe bring a spare helmet.”

As the cab starts to pull away, the back window rolls down.

“And your bread was very good,” James informs him.

Steve feels his chest swell with pride and starts his bike, heading for home. The apartment Tony bought him is great. It’s all wood floors and visible brick walls, bay windows and a modern kitchen and bathroom. The studio in the eaves above it is spacious with great natural light and a view of Manhattan. Steve parks his bike outside and starts for the stairs. As he does, he glances down the street. The next block down, he sees someone who looks an awful lot like James get out of a cab.

 

**Grandma’s Sugar Cookies**

“I think he grew up down the street from me,” Steve says. He’s sitting on the floor of Nat’s office. He’s not entirely sure what she does for Tony, when she’s not enforcing his “don’t fuck with me” orders, but she has an office with a big computer screen and a spacious floor. So does Steve, but he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to in his office.

“This is the guy from the cooking class?” Nat asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says.

“Well, have you Facebook stalked him?” Nat asks. Steve makes a face. “Look, just because you’re a troglodyte, don’t expect other people to be.”

“I am not a troglodyte. If I was a troglodyte, I would not have the job I currently have and I would’ve also died before I left infancy,” Steve points out. “I just don’t like Facebook.”

Nat sighs and goes to argue with him, or maybe Facebook stalk James on his behalf, but Steve watches her remember that she doesn’t have Facebook either. Really, none of them do. None of them except Tony.

Steve is almost comically unsurprised that Nat knows Tony’s Facebook password. They ignore the notifications he’s got in favour of typing James’s name into the search bar. James, to Steve’s smug sort of relief, also does not have a Facebook.

“Well damn,” Nat says.

Steve sticks his tongue out at her and goes back to work.

It’s the next day, Saturday, when he’s at Whole Foods with Nat and Peggy and their two extant children and Peggy’s baby bump, that he runs into James. Well, he spots James hanging out in the produce section and takes an immediate dive into dried bulk foods before James spots him.

“What’s wrong with Uncle Steve?” Katie asks, leaning against Timothy James, Peggy’s kid. They had all agreed after they rescued Tony that the first of them to acquire a male child was allowed to use Dum-Dum and Morita’s names. It turned out to be Peggy.

“So much I couldn’t even begin to explain so you would understand yet,” Nat says, reading the ingredients on a bulk container of trail mix.

“Thanks,” Steve says, glaring at her.

“But Steve, why did you just lunge into the aisle?” Peggy asks. Her eyes light up. “You didn’t see someone did you?”

“Who would I have seen?” Steve asks, going red under the collar and around the ears.

“Maybe this mysterious, good looking chef you’ve been courting in secret for the past four weeks,” Peggy says. She’s beautiful, absurdly so, but in such a different way than Nat. Nat is fire. Peggy is earth. He’s glad they’re best friends. Mostly, he’s glad he and Peggy broke up amicably enough that they’re still friends. Good friends. Plus, he really likes Daniel so it all works out. It would just work better if Steve wasn’t single.

“I did not see James,” Steve says.

“Wha?” Timothy James says. He’s one and a half, so it’s about as close as he can get to a fully articulated question.

“Steve?” James asks from behind them and Steve’s cover is blown. Steve whirls around. “I thought that was you.”

There’s a moment of Steve blushing bright red to match Nat’s hair while Nat and Peggy size James up with the hungry eyes of married people who have no desire to touch but are very happy they get to look.

“You must be the chef Steve and Tony have taken an interest in,” Peggy says.

Steve doesn’t want to know what James thinks of the fact he’s just found Steve in a grocery store with two women, both of whom have children, neither of whom have any visibly attached man aside from Steve.

“Bucky Barnes,” James says, holding his hand out to Peggy.

Bucky?

“Pleasure to meet you,” Peggy says. “I’m Peggy Carter.”

“Natasha Romanoff,” Nat says.

“I’m Katie,” Katie says. “This is Timmy James.”

“Timmy James, huh?” James – Bucky? – asks. He nods and catches the attention of the youngest member of their crew. “My first name’s James. You’re lucky it’s your middle name. You can hide it if you want.”

Timothy James blushes like he always does at strangers and hides his little face in Katie’s sweater. Katie giggles.

“Bucky’s a silly name,” Katie informs him and Steve is almost tempted to agree with his goddaughter except that it seems to suit him somehow.

“I know,” James – Bucky – agrees. “But see, my name is James Buchanan, which is even sillier, so my sisters started calling me Bucky when I was a kid and it just…stuck.”

“James Buchanan Barnes, huh?” Nat asks. “Gee, the Irish must be strong in you.”

“I bet I could probably drink an equal amount of whiskey to your vodka, Ms Romanoff,” Bucky replies. Which is approximately the moment Steve realises Bucky flirts with everyone and it’s not personal. “I’ve got plans to test just how Irish Steve is later this week.”

“How did you know I was Irish?” Steve asks.

Bucky levels a smirk at him. “You’re not the only one who can look up people’s military records, Stevie.”

Steve stays floored between the carob chips and floured date pieces while Bucky bids them goodbye with the explanation his sisters are in town for the weekend and he’s promised to make them dinner. When Bucky’s gone, Steve feels all of the tension leave his body.

“Oh my god,” Peggy says, staring after Bucky with her eyebrows raised.

“Steve,” Nat says. It’s her dangerous calm tone. Steve braces for impact. “The next time you say you’ve got a crush on the hot chef who teaches your cooking class, you need to start with ‘He’s sex on legs’.”

“Oops?” Steve offers, which earns him a punch to the shoulder from Peggy.

“And did you see the way he looked at Steve? It was like he wanted to suck--” Peggy stops herself mid-sentence with an embarrassed look at the two very small children in the shopping cart.

 _Suck his soul out through his dick_ , Nat signs. They had all learned sign language on Clint’s behalf after Tony’s rescue, which had knocked out eighty percent of his hearing on good days.

“Precisely,” Peggy agrees.

“I don’t like either of you,” Steve informs them and stalks off to the wine section.

Thursday comes both too quickly and not quickly enough. Steve spends the entire weekend painting, working on his latest batch for the art auction Pepper’s putting together. Maybe once the cooking classes are over next week, he can offer Bucky a trade, Steve will teach him art if Bucky teaches him how to cook but holy shit that sounds like a worthless trade. Steve wouldn’t take that trade. If he had a worthwhile skill like cooking, he would not trade it for innocuous frippery like painting. Graphic design, maybe, since it’s useful. But other than that.

He spends the work week furiously throwing himself into his work so he doesn’t have to think about running into Bucky at the store or how ridiculously delicious Bucky looked in the thin red sweater he wore or the way his jeans clung to his thighs like a second skin. They were counterproductive things to focus on.

The end result is he is so steadfast in avoiding thinking about Bucky that he almost misses the email informing the entire class that they should take care to eat dinner before class since they would be making dessert.

 Steve decides to brave the pasta sauce on his own for dinner. To his complete surprise, it works. It even tastes good. He’s a little over the top proud of himself for it, and happily ladles the left overs into a Tupperware.

He dresses well for the class, fully confident that there’s nothing that could come between him and Bucky finally getting drinks. It’s only been two weeks since it was brought up.

Per usual, he’s the first person to arrive and takes his station in the front. Bucky isn’t even pretending that he wasn’t waiting for Steve to show up, because he pokes his head out of the door to the back when the main door opens and then walks in with a grin when he sees it’s Steve.

“Any work emergencies?” Bucky asks.

“Any contractor’s meetings?” Steve replies.

“Good,” Bucky says. “Because I’ve been waiting a little too long for you to buy me a drink.”

“I think you might have earned two drinks now,” Steve says.

“Why’s that?” Bucky asks, leaning against Steve’s station casually.

“Because you endured my friends at Whole Foods,” Steve says.

Bucky bursts out laughing. “That was not enduring. They were perfectly pleasant. If you’d run into me and my sisters, I’d owe you every single thing they serve at the bar.”

“How many are there?” Steve asks.

“Three,” Bucky says. “Becca’s seven years younger than me, Josie’s three years younger than Becca, and Ellie’s two years younger than Josie.”

“Twelve years apart?” Steve asks.

Bucky shrugs. “The girls have a different dad.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “What are we making today?”

“Sugar cookies,” Bucky says. “So that none of you ever has to buy them in the store again because those things are gross.”

“They really are,” Steve agrees.

“Thank god, I would’ve had to cancel our drinks if you said you liked them,” Bucky says, grinning at him. Steve is sure he imagined the way Bucky stumbled over ‘drinks’ like he wanted to say date instead.

Sugar cookies turn out to not be challenging. Steve doesn’t know why he expected them to be. The most complex thing they’ve made in class so far is the chicken pot pie. But that’s the point of this class. To teach the basics so that the students are enabled to go forth and experiment with more complicated things.

They melt the butter and mix it with the sugar and vanilla, then the eggs. Then they add the flour and the salt (“There’s salt in sugar cookies?” Steve asks because no one else seems to be questioning this. “Trust me, Stevie,” Bucky says.) and the baking powder. They mix it all together, a pale yellow dough, and stick it in their fridges for another round of Cards Against Humanity, which, to no one’s surprise, Steve wins.

They take their chilled dough out of the fridges and Bucky shows them how to roll it into balls and flatten it with a regular glass that’s been dipped in sugar. The crystals glitter where they’re pressed into the dough. Steve can’t help but sit on the floor to watch his cookies brown in the oven.

When they come out, everyone pops their next tray into the oven and sets the first batch on the cooling racks. Bucky winds his way through the stations to check on everyone’s progress. He comes by Steve’s station a few too many times and even steals one of Steve’s cookies. Steve gives him a scandalised look that makes Bucky choke on his pilfered cookie. By the time they’re done baking, Steve has four dozen cookies. He’s really proud of them too, because they taste amazing and they melt in his mouth. He loads them into a Tupperware and hugs them to his chest.

“Okay, next week, we’re going to get a break halfway through class,” Bucky says while everyone cleans their stations. “Because we will be making boeuf bourguignon. It has to cook for at least three hours, and since I know all of you have to work, class will run late instead of starting early. For those of you who want to hang out between prep and eating, I’ll be showing old episodes of Julia Child, but please don’t think you’ll hurt my feelings by not staying. I’m perfectly content to watch Julia by myself.”

Everyone laughs and Steve knows they all like Bucky. He’s just pretty sure he’s the one who really _likes_ Bucky and holy shit he feels like he’s in middle school again.

“I’ll stay and watch Julia Child with you,” he says.

“Good,” Bucky says. “I’d be offended if _you_ didn’t.”

“I feel so singled out,” Steve says, mock offended.

“You should, you’re the hottest person in this class,” Bucky says, his voice low enough that no one else can hear him.

And yeah, okay, maybe Bucky flirts with everyone, but Steve is pretty damn sure that he means it where Steve is concerned.

“I don’t know about that,” Steve says. “I’ve got some pretty stiff competition.”

“Who? Wanda?” Bucky asks, because it’s probably a tie between Wanda and Angie for best looking girl in class.

“No, you,” Steve corrects.

“Ah, yeah but I’m not technically _in_ the class,” Bucky says, smirking at him. Steve rolls his eyes.

“Are you going to let me buy you a drink or just stand there arguing semantics with me?” Steve asks.

“Lead the way, Captain,” Bucky says, gesturing Steve towards the door.

“Watch it, Sergeant,” Steve says, laughing while he hands Bucky his spare helmet. “You don’t want me to pull rank.”

“No, not really, but I do think it’s funny we both stalked each other’s military records,” Bucky says, climbing onto the bike behind Steve. Steve feels the best kind of chills go through him when Bucky wraps his arms around him. He holds on way tighter than necessary. Steve absolutely does not complain.

“Where are we going?” Steve asks.

“Four blocks up, six blocks over,” Bucky instructs.

“Grammercy’s?” Steve asks, forcing himself not to turn around to look at Bucky and instead keep his eyes on the road. “You’re having me take you to the pub where I spent all of high school bussing tables?”

“Oh my god I knew you looked familiar!” Bucky practically shouts from behind him. Steve laughs and parks in front of the pub. Windswept with a motorcycle helmet in hand is a good look on Bucky, Steve decides. He’s pretty sure most things are a good look on Bucky.

“Seriously, weren’t you like…tiny?” Bucky asks, holding his hand somewhere near his own sternum to indicate Steve’s height.

“Yeah, I was under 5’5” and about a hundred pounds soaking wet,” Steve agrees, following Bucky into the bar which hasn’t changed much since his high school days. He knows that already though, since he’s here all the time because it’s a block from his apartment. It’s a traditional Irish pub that made his Irish mother feel at home. She’d been the one to talk Grammercy into giving Steve a job. Grammercy had been the one to take pity on Steve and teach him how to make a proper fist when it came to punching people in back alleys, which Steve might have done a lot of in high school.

“Oh my god what happened?” Bucky asks, squeezing Steve’s arm like he’s trying to figure out if it’s fake.

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “Puberty? I joined the Army?”

Bucky shakes his head incredulously and lifts a hand to Grammercy, who is now ancient and still holds his own at the bar.

“Usual, Barnes?” Grammercy asks.

“Thanks!” Bucky calls, sitting at a booth.

“And you Rogers?” Grammercy calls.

“Always,” Steve says, joining Bucky.

“Okay, so aside from the fact you’re the only busboy I’ve ever felt compelled to wrap in a warm blanket, we have to have more connections,” Bucky says. “Because I grew up about a block away from here.”

“Yeah, so did I,” Steve says. “It was you getting out of the cab last week.”

“I thought that looked like your bike,” Bucky agrees. “Shit, we must have gone to the same schools all the way through.”

“Yeah, but you’re what? Three years older than me? So I would’ve missed you entirely in middle school and you were a senior when I started high school,” Steve points out.

“True,” Bucky agrees. He looks pensive while Grammercy brings their drinks. Both are dark pints of beer. They eye each other uncertainly and slowly trade beers. Steve takes a sip of Bucky’s and makes a face, pushing it back while Bucky does the same to his.

“Guinness?” Steve asks, taking his Murphy’s back with a mock sneer on his face.

“What? Your family’s from Cork?” Bucky asks, looking repulsed.

They both burst out laughing after a second.

“Okay, but…how do you know Tony Stark?” Bucky asks. “Because I’m guessing he doesn’t hire just anyone, at least not to important enough positions that they’ll answer the phone snarkily to him.”

Steve sighs and drinks his beer.

“My squad were the ones who found him in Afghanistan,” Steve explains. “Tony’s been doing everything he can for us ever since. I’m pretty sure he would’ve done a lot more than buy you a restaurant if he knew where you were before I signed up for your cooking class. Before Nat signed me up for your cooking class.”

At first he thinks Bucky’s staring at him because he’s having flashbacks to getting blown up in Afghanistan. But the look on his face is different than that. It’s more stunned than anything else.

“Oh my god you’re Captain America,” he says. “Sorry but you were? What? Twenty when you and the rest of the Howling Commandos dragged Stark out of that cave?”

“Twenty one,” Steve mumbles, looking down at his beer.

“That’s not healthy Steve,” Bucky says. Steve shrugs. “Jesus, you probably meant to be career military didn’t you?”

Steve shrugs again. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead, especially since when he was a kid, winter used to mean he had about a fifty-fifty chance of living to see spring.

“And when they med-evaced me, all I kept shouting about was how if they amputated my arm I’d never get to make a meringue by hand ever again,” Bucky says, whistling lowly. He finishes off his beer and Steve follows suit. Grammercy brings them two more.  “And here you are, fucking Captain America.”

“I dunno, if I had any control over the situation, you’d be the one fucking Captain America,” Steve hears himself say before he goes tomato red and buries his face on the table. “Please, please pretend I didn’t just say that.”

But Bucky is howling with laughter.

“Oh my god it’s so good to know Grammercy puts whiskey in your beer too,” he says. “And someday, I’m going to make you play Cards Against Humanity while you’re drunk.”

Steve lets himself start laughing and looks up to drink more of his beer-whiskey. “We’ll make it strip Cards Against Humanity. Whoever collects the black card has to take off an item of clothing.”

“You’d be naked awful fast Stevie,” Bucky says, leaning across the table towards him.

“Maybe that’s the point,” Steve says, leaning towards him as well. He really wants to kiss Bucky. He’s pretty sure Bucky really wants to kiss him.

So of course, Steve’s phone rings.

Steve swears and finishes off his second beer-whiskey. The caller ID tells him it’s Daniel Sousa.

“Who’s Daniel Sousa? Should I be jealous?” Bucky asks, polishing off his own beer.

“Not unless you routinely get jealous of married and bechilded straight guys,” Steve replies. He slides to unlock and holds the phone up to his ear. “Hey Daniel.”

“Hey Steve, how’s things?” Daniel asks, the very sound of calm. Daniel is a paediatrician. Peggy met him when she was babysitting for Katie and the little girl came down with a fever. Since Nat and Clint were actively out of the country, Peggy had rushed her to the hospital, only to find a husband.

“I’m kinda on a date,” Steve says, eyeing Bucky, who’s gesturing at Grammercy. The man skips the Murphy’s and Guinness entirely this time, bringing them two glasses of whiskey. Steve takes a sip.

“Oh, right, then you get back to it,” Daniel says, but then Steve hears in the back, “Sousa you tell Steve that if doesn’t get his tiny ass over here as soon as he can he forfeits any and all godfather rights for the love of FUCK make the contractions stop!”

Steve can picture Daniel’s face exactly at that moment, where he’s nodding in a resigned way.

“Holy shit, Peggy’s in labour?” Steve demands.

“She is,” Daniel agrees. “She wishes for your presence.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Steve promises. “Get your guys on the epidural?”

“We’re working on it,” Daniel promises. “She’s fighting us.”

“Of course she is,” Steve says, sighing. “I’ll see you in a few.”

He hangs up and grimaces at Bucky.

“If it’s not Tony Stark blowing up his lab or my contractor demanding my Thursday night, it’s your friend in labour, right?” Bucky says with a wry smile. Steve nods and finishes his whiskey, which he realises as he sets the empty glass down was the wrong choice.

“Shit,” he says. “I can’t drive.”

Bucky frowns. “Give me your keys.”

“You’ve had as much to drink as I have,” Steve points out.

“Keys,” Bucky demands. Steve hands them over and watches in non-comprehension while Bucky throws the keys to Grammercy. “You know where Steve lives, right?”

“Aside from the eight years that boy spent in the desert, I’ve always known where he lives,” Grammercy grumbles. “And I’ll put it on your tab.”

Steve doesn’t question this, and allows Bucky to pull him out of the pub and onto the bitterly cold December street. A cab stops in front of them immediately and Bucky pulls Steve inside.

“St Joes,” Steve says, and the driver nods, driving off. It’s then that Steve registers two facts – one, he’s buzzed. Two, Bucky is still with him. “You’re here?”

“My date is not being interrupted because your future godchild is being born,” Bucky says. “Fuck that. Yeah I’m here.”

Steve grins and finds himself leaning across the seat to kiss Bucky. His lips are just as soft and comfortable as they look, his hint of stubble scratchy on Steve’s jaw. Bucky’s tongue, when it flicks into Steve’s, tastes like whiskey and sugar cookies and Steve’s pretty sure it’s the most erotic thing he’s ever experienced.

“Hey! Do _not_ have sex in my car!” the driver scolds from the front seat.

Reluctantly, they break apart and return to sitting side by side, only their thighs touching (this is almost enough for Steve to request that the driver turn around and take them back to Steve’s apartment).

“I’m guessing it’s a good thing you brought the cookies into the pub,” Bucky says, tapping the Tupperware that Steve had completely forgotten about. “They’ll be a big hit.”

They arrive at the hospital and are directed to a waiting room that’s already overflowing with flowers and gift baskets including one that’s entirely full of mini-muffins. Steve doesn’t even need to suspect Tony because there’s literally no one else it could be. At least, this time, there is not an eight foot tall stuffed rabbit.

“Steve!” Clint exclaims, dragging him into a hug as soon as they’re in sight. “Thank god.”

“That bad?” Steve asks.

“We already had to banish the children to go hang out with Aunt Darcy and Uncle Jacques, which is, well…” Clint starts.

“Yeah, that bad,” Steve agrees. “Clint, this is Bucky.”

“Oh, uh, hi,” Clint says, frowning at Bucky. “Who are you?”

“I’m Steve’s date,” Bucky says with a demure smile.

Steve had definitely felt the alcohol start to kick in on the cab ride, and he’s a little bigger than Bucky, so he’s betting Bucky is a little drunker than he is right now.

“You brought a date to the birth of your fourth godchild,” Clint says.

“Yes,” Steve says. He really wants to kiss Bucky right there in the waiting room, but stops himself because Gabe and Monty come into view then, holding two trays of coffee.

“Steve, thank god,” Gabe says. He hands his tray of coffee to Monty and squeezes Steve.

“Steve, thank god,” Monty says, returning the coffees to Gabe and hugging Steve. “You smell like a distillery.”

“I was on a date,” Steve says.

Predictably, this gets Clint, Monty, and Gabe to shout in excitement, which, equally predictably, gets them an angry look from the nurse at the desk.

“You’re the chef, right?” Gabe asks, holding out his hand to Bucky.

“I’m famous,” Bucky says, giving Steve a lecherous smile.

“This is the third Thursday in a row where our date has failed, so yeah, I might have mentioned you,” Steve admits.

“Ignore him, he’s a bloody idiot,” Monty recommends. “He’s been babbling about you since the first class he took.”

“Has he really?” Bucky asks, sounding like Christmas has just come two weeks early.

“Ignore them, they’ve been together too long to have boundaries around each other or other people,” Steve says.

“No, I think I’ll stay here and get all the dirt while you go get your hand broken by a pregnant lady,” Bucky says, shooing him towards Peggy’s room. Steve pretends to glower at him and does as he’s told.

Peggy doesn’t break his hand (she does break one of Daniel’s fingers) but it’s a close thing. Nat is the first one to get to hold Peggy’s daughter, Sharon. Steve is second. He wonders for a moment about all of their children. Kishiko Morita is probably going to be fine in the godparent department since she’s got seven Howling Commandos as her godparents. But Katie Barton and Timothy James and Sharon Sousa have five or six Commandos, four mad scientists, a CEO, a social media guru, and someone who could easily pass for a Norse God. It doesn’t seem like it’s necessarily a good thing to Steve, but it’s better than the alternative.

 

**Boeuf Bourguignon**

Steve wakes up in his own bed, which is not what he was expecting.

He doesn’t wake up alone, however, which is at least what he was hoping for. But there’s the slight annoyance that he and Bucky are both mostly clothed. Steve lost his pants somewhere along the trip between the hospital and his apartment (he vaguely remembers telling Bucky that it’s like a mile to his apartment and if Bucky has any sense he’d just stay at Steve’s house. He very prominently remembers making out with Bucky until they both passed out from exhaustion) and his shirt. Bucky lost his jeans and the button down shirt he was wearing over a white tee. Where he’s sprawled out on his stomach on one half of Steve’s bed, Steve can see the intense scarring on his left arm. It starts near his shoulder and ends near his elbow. It’s a combination of burns and shrapnel. Steve remembers Bucky saying that he’d been panicked they were going to amputate it and he wouldn’t be able to cook anymore.

It’s because of this that he finds himself tracing the scars with one of his fingertips.

Slowly, Bucky stirs, and opens one gorgeous blue eye in his direction.

“What time is it?” he asks, voice hoarse from sleep.

“It’s only nine thirty,” Steve says.

“Don’t you have to be at work?” Bucky asks.

“No,” Steve says. “Tony called everyone before we left the hospital. We’ve all got the day off. I wouldn’t be surprised if he already called your contractors and sent someone down to supervise in your absence.”

“He’s a little weird, right? Tony?” Bucky asks. “Good weird, but weird.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, snuggling closer to Bucky until he’s managed to wedge himself under Bucky’s outstretched arm and is halfway underneath him. Bucky is very warm. Steve’s apartment at 9:30 in the morning in December is not. At that moment, he can’t really remember how he manages to function with only a down blanket for warmth. “He hired all of us Commandos. He bought me this apartment, he bought Nat and Clint their apartment and paid for their wedding. He paid for all of us to go to Maine for Monty and Gabe’s first wedding. He designed and built special hearing aids for Clint that made him still eligible for military service.”

“He bought me a restaurant on my home block, the apartment above it, and paid the contractors and designers to refurbish everything,” Bucky adds. “And all I did was survive the attack that got him kidnapped.”

“He says you saved Colonel Rhodes’ life,” Steve says.

“If I did, I don’t remember it,” Bucky says. He’s quiet for a second. “The only thing I remember is being on fire and taking cover and then shouting at the medics not to take my arm.”

Steve slips his arm around Bucky’s waist which is at a less awkward angle than it had been before Steve wedged himself below. Where his forearm has tugged up Bucky’s shirt, he feels the burn scars that go down his side instead of stopping at his shoulder. He half expects Bucky to flinch away from the touch, but it’s been seven years since they made up the parentheses on the most traumatic event in Tony Stark’s life. Bucky doesn’t flinch, and instead wraps his arm around Steve as well.

Steve brushes his nose against Bucky’s and kisses him softly. The moment is ruined by Steve’s stomach rumbling.

“I’ll make breakfast,” Bucky says, sliding out of Steve’s bed and yelping at the coldness of the floors. Tony had offered to get someone to put heated floors in, but Steve had said it seemed like an unnecessary luxury. He’s regretted that decision since.

Rather than brave Steve’s frigid floors, Bucky retreats to the safety of the bed.

“Do you have slippers?” Bucky asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says, leaning over his side of the bed and extricating one of them with his foot. Anything to not touch the cold wood of the floor.

He hands the slippers to Bucky who puts them on with a muttered comment about Steve’s feet being way too big, and shuffles off. Steve hears him clanking around in the kitchen and catches the unmistakeable gurgle of the coffee pot. Unable to resist the temptation, because he’s never actually seen Bucky cook, Steve makes a mad dash for his closet, grabs a thick Irish fisherman’s sweater he’s pretty sure had belonged to his father, pulls on a pair of thick wool socks, and heads for the kitchen. He’s not sure what Bucky’s making at first, but it becomes pretty clear he’s making French toast, except way better than any Steve has ever had. The only difference he can discern is that instead of simply using milk and eggs and cinnamon, he’s using eggnog with extra nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

While Bucky cooks, Steve pours the coffee.

“How do you take your coffee?” Steve asks.

“Black,” Bucky says. Steve hands him a cup.

“So since you’re a chef, how often do you eat out?” Steve asks, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Usually only for breakfast,” Bucky says. “I can’t make bagels to save my life, so it’s good to go out for them.”

Steve considers this. “How do you rate restaurants? Like, you’ve got to be more particular in what you consider good than the rest of us are, so what’s your standard?”

“I judge every breakfast restaurant by its potatoes,” Bucky says. He grins. “It’s the Irish.”

Steve laughs and drinks his own coffee while Bucky finishes up the toast. He’s more than a little proud of himself when Bucky enthuses about the fact Steve has real maple syrup in his fridge.

“Sam and Maria brought it back from Vermont,” Steve explains. “Maria’s from Montpelier and was horrified that I wasn’t using good stuff.”

“What do you even put it on?” Bucky asks, sitting at Steve’s dining table.

“Hey, I make a mean bisquick pancake,” Steve says.

Bucky is instantly horrified and doesn’t stop giving Steve a hurt look.

“There’s a reason Nat signed me up for your class,” Steve says.

“And thank god she did,” Bucky says, cutting into his French toast. Steve does the same and wonders at how ridiculously domestic this is. Steve’s there in his sweater and boxers and socks, Bucky in a t-shirt, boxers, and Steve’s slippers, while they drink their coffee the same way and eat French toast. “So what are you going to do with your unexpected Friday off?”

Steve shrugs and stops himself just in time from saying “you.”

“I’ll probably paint,” he says. “Pepper’s got a charity art auction coming up and I volunteered to donate some pieces for it. Not that they’ll sell, but still.”

“Not going to sell, huh?” Bucky asks. He doesn’t sound like he believes him at all. “You’ll have to let me be the judge of that.”

Steve doesn’t really know what to say to that and settles for showing Bucky up to his studio after they finish breakfast. The light coming through the windows is cold but bright and the sun falls on Steve’s paintings. He shifts nervously in his stocking feet while Bucky looks through the paintings.

“They’re not very--” Steve starts.

“Steve,” Bucky interrupts, in a tone that suggests Steve should stop talking.

Steve stops and lets Bucky paw through them. There’s a painting in the back, a big one. It’s based on a picture Steve had taken years ago on the base in Afghanistan. Everyone’s in it except Steve himself, all crowded together on Dum-Dum’s bunk and mugging for the camera. He’d painted it for his own benefit, sort of with the intent of making copies and giving it to everyone, especially Kishiko Morita and Mr and Mrs Dugan.

They’re all in their desert camo, even if Nat’s hair sticks out like fire. She’s got her arm around Clint’s shoulders – well before they started dating, let alone got married – and he in turn is hugging Monty. Monty has one hand on the back of Gabe’s head and Gabe is draped partway over Dum-Dum, who’s howling with laughter. Peggy’s on his other side, giggling, with Dernier bringing up the end, and Morita is stretched across all of their laps like he’s a 1940s pinup girl on a piano. There’s so much life and vivacity in all their faces that Steve likes to think was in the original picture as well, not just his interpretation of it.

“You’re all so young,” Bucky says, staring at the picture.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “Nat and Peggy were nineteen. Gabe was twenty, I was twenty-one, Monty and Clint were twenty-three. Dernier and Dum-Dum were pretty much ancient at twenty-five, and Morita, Jesus, he was our old fart.”

“Twenty-six?” Bucky guesses. Steve nods. “Tim and James?”

Steve points out Dum-Dum and Morita.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Bucky says.

“It was a long time ago,” Steve says. “The rest of us did pretty well.”

“Good,” Bucky says, leaning the painting back where it went and wrapping Steve in a hug.

They don’t really leave for the weekend. Well, they do, they go grocery shopping because Steve has a pitiable amount of food in his house, and while they’re there, they run into Darcy and Dernier, who are somehow still on babysitting duty.

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Darcy says, giving Steve and Bucky a lecherous smile. “Hi, I’m Darcy, the only person in all of Stark Industries with her head firmly screwed on straight.”

Steve and Dernier exchange looks like they want to argue, but neither of them do because Darcy is right. Maybe Pepper. Pepper might be okay.

“I’m Bucky,” Bucky says, shaking Darcy’s hand. Katie and Timothy James both stare at him.

“I remember you,” Katie says. “Your name is still silly.”

“I know,” Bucky says. “And I hear you have a little sister, young man.”

Timothy James just frowns at him and then looks to Steve, Darcy, and Dernier for some sort of explanation. Bucky immediately looks awkward.

“He’s one and a half, don’t worry about it,” Steve recommends, lacing his fingers through Bucky’s. “We’ll see you guys later.”

He’s dragged back for a hug from both Katie and Timothy James and ignores the waggled eyebrows from Darcy and Dernier.

“So they’re dating?” Bucky asks when Darcy and Dernier are out of earshot.

The closest answer any of them have been able to come up with so far is a deeply confused shrug, which is kind of problematic because Nat and Clint and Peggy were definitely recruited to be spies for SHIELD more than once.

“Fair enough,” Bucky says, laughing. He’s slowly filling up the shopping cart with things Steve has never once considered buying. Things like yeast. And flour.

“Are you baking for me?” Steve asks, bumping his shoulder into Bucky’s.

“For you? Hell no, for my own self-preservation,” Bucky says, grinning at him. Steve has never before kissed someone in an aisle at Whole Foods, and discovers he likes it, especially when a little old lady gives them an evil glare.

“I should probably warn you,” Steve says later that day after they’ve made it back to his apartment and Bucky is halfway through making bread. The back of Steve’s hand is red from where he’s been smacked with a wooden spoon for trying to snitch pieces of dough. “I haven’t really…dated…anyone in five years.”

Bucky considers him. “Okay,” he says. “I can work with that. Have you gotten laid in the past five years because if not, the bread can really wait.”

Steve is sorely tempted to say no, leave the bread in the kitchen, and let Bucky take him apart. But he’s too honest for that.

“I just haven’t dated,” he says.

“Okay,” Bucky says, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing Steve intensely and grabbing his ass.

***

Steve’s neck is a mess of hickeys when he shows up for work on Monday morning. He tries to hide them under the collar of his shirt and the scarf he wears because, hey, it’s mid-December, he’s entitled to a scarf.

The scarf lasts until he’s walking to his office, when Nat and Clint waltz by one either side of him and pull it off. It’s a miracle they don’t accidentally strangle him.

Clint lets out a low whistle when the bruises on Steve’s neck are revealed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says, pushing Clint away by the face. He fails not to blush or hide his smile, so he ducks his head.

“Damn Steve,” Nat says. “Those are some impressive bite marks.”

“Yeah, and you should see the other guy,” Steve mumbles. He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth, because they’re awful (true, but whatever) and Nat will never, ever let it go.

“Steve Rogers you filthy man,” Clint says with a definite note of pride in his voice.

“Clint, I swear to god,” Steve says, running for his office before they can hound him more. He worries for Katie then, really, he does. If she grows up with those two as role models…

The news of Steve’s hickeys and other visual confirmation he’s gotten laid spreads through the office and before he leaves for lunch, he’s visited by pretty much every person he’s close to, starting with Maria, then Darcy, Dernier, Gabe, Monty, Jane, Thor, Bruce, Betty (who hugs him), Sam, Pepper, and finally Tony, who is smug.

Steve eats lunch in his office with the door locked.

Tuesday is a little better, but not by much. At least the hickeys are fading and Bucky’s had to work both at the restaurant where he teaches classes and also with the contractors fixing up the restaurant Tony bought him. Wednesday is bearable, but Thursday prompts all of his co-workers to stop by and wish him a good evening for this, his last cooking class. All of his co-workers including Peggy, who turns up to show off Sharon, and stays to gently rib Steve about his new not-yet-boyfriend.

“From what everyone says, he’s good for you,” Peggy says, smiling while he cradles Sharon. “He seems the type to worry over you without being a filthy hypocrite about it.”

“You’re saying he’s my Daniel?” Steve asks, booping baby Sharon on the nose. She sneezes and it’s probably the most adorable thing Steve has ever seen.

“Something like that,” Peggy agrees. She takes her baby back, kisses Steve on the cheek, and goes to share her newest child with Jane and Thor. It came to light when Katie was born, but Thor is the absolute best of any of them with children for all his being a bit taller than Steve and twice as broad.

Steve takes way too much time getting ready for his cooking class that evening. He’s looked up boeuf bourguignon and it sounds really good and also completely terrifying. But hell, he made a chicken pot pie from scratch and he’s definitely sure Bucky will assist him before he breaks anything.

Bucky greets him at the door of the cooking class with a kiss. Steve doesn’t think he’ll get tired of kissing him any time soon.

“Hey,” Steve says, grinning at him.

“You are going to keep me company while I have to watch all six ovens, right?” Bucky asks, sounding mildly desperate.

“Of course,” Steve says. “What else would I do?”

Bucky beams at him and kisses him again, only to quickly step back because Pietro and Crystal Maximoff have just shown up with Pietro’s twin sister Wanda and her husband Jonas. They’re followed by Angie and David, and Foggy and Karen, and Jessica and Luke. Steve retreats to his station while the others greet Bucky and thank him for such a fun way to spend six weeks. Steve grins to himself and sees the cloves of garlic on the counter. He’s not even frustrated by the sight of them anymore.

“Alright everyone, I just wanted to start by thanking you all for being such a great class,” Bucky says. “Now to start off, we’re going to set some water to boil for the pearl onions.”

Steve glances at the pearl onions. They’re little tiny things, about the size of the garlic cloves. He puts some water on for them, and they fry up some bacon, and use the grease to sauté the mushrooms and carrots. Meanwhile, they sear the beef chunks in butter in a different pan.

“That’s going to suck to scrub out,” Jessica says. Steve looks at his own pan and sees the brown residue clinging steadfast to the bottom of the pan. She’s right. That is going to suck.

“You’re not going to scrub it out,” Bucky says. “You’re going to use it.”

They all stare at him while he instructs them to add all their ingredients to their Dutch ovens. Bucky calls them Le Creuset pots, which Steve quickly establishes is the brand. Once the onions and the carrots and the mushrooms and the beef is in there, he instructs them to pour about a cup of wine into the pan they’d used for the beef. The liquid takes up the beef residue (Bucky calls it a frond. Steve doesn’t ask) and they mix together very well. They pour this over the ingredients already in their baking dishes and then add some beef stock that Bucky had already prepared until everything’s covered.

“Now all you do is cover it, throw it in the oven, and come back in three hours,” Bucky says. “Not exactly horrifying, right?”

Everyone agrees that it is not.

“And besides, it sounds really fancy and hard to make, so you can use it to impress the crap out of your in-laws,” Bucky adds.

“Your in-laws must love you,” Foggy says.

Bucky laughs. “I’m kinda single,” he says. “Kinda.”

Steve glances over in time to see Bucky wink at him.

“That’s a damn shame,” Angie says. Bucky laughs.

Everyone starts packing their stuff together and getting ready to do something with their three hours.

“Hey, Steve, we were going to go catch the new Star Wars,” Pietro says. “If you wanted to come with us.”

It turns out everyone in the class is going together, some kind of last hurrah before they have their last meal together in three hours. Bucky looks over at him, silently giving him permission to go if he wants.

“Thanks for the invite, but I promised B – James that I’d help clean up and keep an eye on everything,” Steve says. “Maybe some other time?”

“Of course,” Pietro says. And then the ten of them are gone and it’s just Steve and Bucky.

“Now I’m sort of sad I don’t have any parents for you to impress,” Steve says, leaning against the front counter next to Bucky.

“I do,” Bucky says, grinning at him in a rather shark-like manner. “And three little sisters.”

“I guess I’ve got the Commandos,” Steve admits. “And everyone at Stark.”

“Yeah, somehow I think that’s a little more intimidating than the five Proctors I could inflict on you,” Bucky says.

“Eh, they’re mostly harmless,” Steve says. “Besides, without Natasha, I never would’ve taken this class.”

Bucky laughs and presses a quick kiss to the side of his neck. Steve tries to ignore the tingles this sends through his system. For the most part, he fails.

“I wonder if she knows I teach a beginners class for single people too,” Bucky says. This is news to Steve, and he frowns at him.

“Seriously?” he asks. Bucky nods.

 _To be fair_ , Steve thinks, _if I’d been in the single persons beginners class, maybe Bucky wouldn’t have noticed me._

“We make lasagne and enchiladas and stuff,” Bucky says. “Vast quantities of food that keeps for a while. It’s almost entirely single men.”

“Do they keep their hands to themselves?” Steve asks, suddenly irrationally jealous. Bucky is very clearly not the sort to play around.

“Yeah,” he says.

He leans against Steve and rests his head on his shoulder. Steve really, really likes this.

“Do you mind if I ask something?” Bucky says.

“Shoot,” Steve replies.

“Why did you and Peggy break up?” Bucky asks. Steve’s stomach churns. He hasn’t deliberately hid the fact he and Peggy used to date, it’s just never come up.

“How’d you know?” he asks, which he knows is not the right answer, but he’s curious.

“You had, like, twelve paintings of her,” Bucky says. “And about half of them were pretty scandalous.”

“I should probably give those to Daniel,” Steve admits. He sighs. “We broke up because we’re both kind of reckless, kind of impulsive people and it was a lot worse when we were still in Special Forces. And we both like to worry about our partners constantly, and the…the hypocrisy of one of us worrying over the other for doing the same stupid things kind of built up. We’re a lot better as friends than we ever were as partners.”

“Which is how Peggy ended up married to a nice, safe paediatrician,” Bucky says.

Steve laughs. “Don’t let him fool you, he paid for med school with the GI bill too,” he says.

They spend most of the rest of the three hours hanging out at the dining table. Steve coaxes Bucky into letting him draw him. Admittedly, it’s on the back of one of Bucky’s recipes. Steve discovers that Bucky, when he uses recipes at all, keeps them in a three ring binder because they’re mostly of his own invention. He graciously allows Steve to deface the one for colcannon because he knows it back to front.

Steve just draws Bucky’s face, but he wants to do a full body painting sometime. Granted, he wants to do a nude painting of Bucky, but he’s come to the conclusion that Bucky looks damn good naked. He wants to paint Bucky standing at the stove, drinking coffee, just waking up with his hair cockamamie and his eyes half-lidded from sleep.

“Natasha had to know you teach a cooking class for singles,” Steve says finally, when their three hours is almost up. “She never makes mistakes.”

“Then why would she stick you in a couples’ class?” Bucky asks. They’ve made their way through most of a bottle of wine, which Steve worries might be considered unprofessional by Bucky’s boss here – some terrifying man Steve only knows by reputation and the name Pierce – but Bucky assures him it’s fine since Friday, tomorrow, is his last day here. After all, he has his own restaurant to run.

“Probably because she wanted me to feel worse about being single,” Steve says. “To try and goad me into it.”

Bucky laughs. “That sounds like Sam,” he says. When he remembers Steve doesn’t know who he’s talking about, Bucky gives a long suffering sigh. “My buddy Sam down at the VA. He kept giving me endless crap for teaching a couples’ cooking class when I’ve been single for a good long while.”

Steve frowns, which is clearly not the response Bucky was expecting. “Sam down at the VA,” he repeats. “Sam Wilson?”

Bucky blinks. “Yeah,” he says. “You know him?”

“All of us know him,” Steve says, still frowning. “He was the unlucky counsellor who ended up dealing with the Commandos when we got back. He’s – we made him an honorary member and then he married Maria who’s the Stark-SHIELD liaison and so he’s around all the time.”

“Is he now,” Bucky says, his eyes narrowing. “How well do he and Natasha get along?”

“Way too well,” Steve says, catching on to Bucky’s train of thought.

They stare at each other for a second and then burst out laughing.

“Oh my god they set us up,” Steve says, laughing so hard he has to rest his head on the table.

Bucky, through his laughter, picks up his phone and dials a number Steve recognises as Sam’s. He hears Sam’s voice at the other end greeting him. All Bucky says is “How dare you” before he hangs up.

“We probably owe them, don’t we,” Steve says.

“At the very least we owe them a thank you,” Bucky agrees. He leans across the table and kisses him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The members of Steve's cooking class are:  
> Angie Martinelli (Agent Carter) and her fictional husband David  
> Jessica Jones and Luke Cage  
> Pietro and Crystal Maximoff  
> Wanda Maximoff and Jonas (an alias Vision uses sometimes)  
> Foggy Nelson and Karen Paige 
> 
> You guys get to decide amongst yourselves which couple has been married too long
> 
> And come cry with me about all of the MCU on [tumblr](http://hmslusitania.tumblr.com).


End file.
